


She is Not Me

by MissNessarose



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Blood, Cannibalism, Gen, Murder, Outlast AU, Psychological Horror, asylum AU, gory, split personality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 22:27:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4155318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissNessarose/pseuds/MissNessarose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you want to dance, Natalia?”<br/>It's a small slip-up, of course. He nearly always gets it right, but it's the wrong name at the wrong time.<br/>“That—that's not me. I'm not her. <i>She's</i> not—I'm not—”<br/>Because now <i>she's</i> there, in the back of her mind, spitting in Russian and willing her to claw at the door, to wrap her hands around her throat—<br/>“Natasha. <i>Natasha</i>.”<br/>When she opens her eyes, her forehead is wet with blood.<br/>She doesn't even remember smashing her head into the floor to make the voice stop.</p><p>Deep inside the asylum, they wait. Silent. Together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She is Not Me

**Author's Note:**

> This a short, creepy little piece I had in my head for some time--and eventually, I plan to tie it in with a larger work, a direct AU of the horror game Outlast, that will involve many, many more characters, and much more plot.  
> You don't have to have played the game to understand this, and this can be read separately from the bigger--so far unfinished--piece as well.   
> (I tagged that this had them as a pairing, but it can also be seen as a friendship-y thing)
> 
> For those who can't quite differentiate between the two, Natasha is a more sweet, gentle, ballerina-type, but Natalia, in comparison, is the killer, the spy.
> 
> Be warned: ahead lie graphic depictions of blood, psychological horror, and a slight hint of cannibalism. Not for the faint of heart!
> 
> Enjoy!

He doesn't remember exactly when the asylum began to fall apart, but here they sit, with the ruins all around them. The strange ones don't come down here often anymore, not this deep in the bowels of the hospital. The rooms are all empty, full of dust and mold, but sometimes he hears the distant thudding of bare feet on the floors around them.

There are whispers in the walls that say that there's someone new here.

“I don't think it's true,” he says, scowling at the floor.

Next to him, Natasha picks at the dirt beneath her nails, and smiles.

“It is. I've seen her. Oh, she's very pretty. Dark hair. She works here. Or, she used to.”

It's not _that_ interesting—not really—and he merely shrugs. Moss is beginning to grow along the bottom edge of the one dusty window in the room, that sits high near the ceiling. 

He doesn't like the way that the room feels—too close, always too small on every side.

And with everything going to chaos, they could do what they pleased.

After all, the basement ward has been nearly forgotten for quite some time.

“Nobody uses this hall anymore. We could have whatever room we wanted.”

“No.” Her eyes move to a different point on the wall. Some days, she sees things in the tiles, and he never quite understands why or how.

“I like this one. Just us. That's all that there is, right?”

“Yeah, Nat. Just us.”

“Us...yes.”

She begins humming to herself, something without direction or a proper key, and before long she is whispering lowly in Russian, just under her breath.

“You say something?”

“Fuck off, Barton.”

He's not too fond of Natalia—the _other_ woman, who lies in wait in the back of Nat's head, watching and hissing and screaming and swearing—but once she's here, he can never do much but sit still and wait until Natasha comes back. 

That is, as long as he'd like to keep his head.

Besides, she always comes back. 

The moss on the windowsill is much more interesting all of a sudden. “Yes, ma'am...” 

She makes a low, snarling sort of noise deep in her throat but her head snaps up at the sound of steps, thundering along a hall outside of this block of rooms.

“They're everywhere...” 

An aggravated noise somewhere between a snort and a sniff leaves her, and then she is already out of the broken, steadily chipping doorway and sprinting down the hall.

He would stop her any other day, but he'd rather not be on  _this one's_ bad side, and standing in the way while she was out for blood would only set him up as the victim.

He'd like to be kept in one piece. 

Instead, he leans his head back against the wall, closes his eyes, and listens. 

There is a significant difference between the other inmate and her, and he knows all of the little changes, how to hear them in the silence:

_She is quick, soft, light on her feet, her toes whispering along the tiles and barely leaving a mark or a sound behind. Her breaths are calculated, too, soft and silent and brief—she does not suffocate, and her victim cannot hear her._

_He is wheezing, out of breath, and ran down three flights of stairs to get here. His footsteps are heavy on the cracked floor tiles, messy and sloppy and exhausted. He is shouting, when he can find the oxygen to form the words properly: Walrider, Walrider...._

In contrast, she bears all of the marks of a killer.

The patient only screams once or twice before he is silenced, and Clint doesn't need to be listening hard to hear the taint of death in his voice. 

Then, several other noises that he can make out: there's a satisfied purr when she smiles, all teeth and malice. The patient lets out a few final, fleeting gasps, and then he recognizes the ripping noise of teeth on flesh. 

He doesn't care much for the taste—the patients are too stringy and dry, from years of testing and high doses of medication. But, when she offers to share, it would be  _rude_ to decline...

Unexpectedly, she screams, her shriek ringing cold and clear through the hallways. 

When he reaches her, with a bloodied, twitching body on the floor beneath her, she is standing motionless above it. Stumbling back, shaking, into his arms, it's all that she can do to keep herself from crying.

It's never very clean when she switches back directly after a kill, with blood on her hands that she doesn't remember putting there.

“ _Clint!_ Oh, God, I...I killed him!” 

When he says, “No, you didn't do that. It's fine, Nat. It's fine. Come here,” he's not really lying.

_She_ did that. 

Natasha did not.

_Blood—_ the sight of the gore, the stench of it—fills her senses, and when she pulls a piece of skin from between her teeth she shudders to her knees so sharply that she nearly convulses, and she vomits on the tiles, on the body.

Clint has seen her do much, much more.

This is nothing. 

A single body is nothing.

“Let's go back, Nat. Don't worry about it. Someone else will find it soon.” 

Lifting herself back up to meet him, she seeks solace in his embrace like a child, and he leads her, slowly, back to their room, cold and quiet and white compared to the rest of the asylum.

This has happened many times before, and always, she is so shaken, so frightened, of the woman inside her that she can't control. 

“Where's....my music box?” 

It is a shattered, ugly little thing—once pristine and pastel, he thinks, but not anymore. 

“Here. Right here, Nat.” 

He places it in her trembling hands and folds her bloodied digits around it to make sure that she really knows that it's there.

And she has her music box, and she has him, and that means safety— _safe, warm, white room, we're here, it's okay, she's gone, gone for now, safety, safe, safe._

Her hands fumble with the knobs, her fingers numb.

“I—I _can't._ ”

“I'll get it.”

His voice is just barely a whisper, but it echoes off of the crumbling cement bricks in such a way that he nearly cringes in response.

Her hands shake with such ferocity that she tucks them beneath her thighs to hold them still. “I...I just want to hear it again.”

“I know you do.”

He turns the rusty key in the lock three, four, five times, and then the mechanical tune falls out into the musty air in a mess of pings and chimes. He sets it down on the ground, and she watches the shattered figurine spin slowly with hollow eyes.

“Do you want to dance, Natalia?”

It's a small slip-up, of course. He nearly always gets it right, but it's the wrong name at the wrong time. She twitches, too sharply, slamming her head against one shoulder two or three times.

“That—that's not me. I'm not her. _She's_ not—I'm not—”

The best thing, he has learned in these slip-ups, is to reassure her. Remind her of what is real, of what she knows. His hands find hers in the small room, among the dusty beams of sunlight that filter in through the bars on the window.

“I'm sorry.” His voice is too calm in comparison to her fit, shaking and spouting fragments of words while she contemplates running her head into the wall.

Maybe it will make her go away?

Because now _she's_ there, again, in the back of her mind, spitting in Russian and willing her to claw at the door, to wrap her hands around her throat—

“Natasha. _Natasha.”_

When she opens her eyes, she stares at him as if she had never seen him before. In the brief pause, she watches small droplets of blood fall to obediently strike the ground between them. Her forehead is wet with blood. 

She doesn't even remember smashing her head into the floor to make the voice stop.

Clint merely wipes across the wound with his hand, smearing dirt and blood into her hair. Pressing a kiss just between her eyes, he licks the blood from his lips.

“Hello again.”

Her smile is weak, and she can begin to feel a brief pulse of pain where she hit her head. It will go away, soon.

It always does.

“Hello. What were we doing? I forgot.”

The music box sits silently beside him, and he turns the key again until the tinny melody fills the room.

“You wanted to dance.”

He waits patiently while she thinks about it, struggling to remember, and then smiles.

“Yes. Thank you.”

She rises gracefully from the ground to dance about the room in a series of leaps and lopsided turns. Her gestures and poise are exact, but her movements have the stiff jerkiness of a broken ballerina.

Her toes catch on the sharp corners of the floor tiles too many times, reopening dusty cuts until the soles of her feet are bleeding. The faded white tiles are beginning to smear into pink again.

It's not the first time.

“I love this song, Clint.”

He winds the key up a few more times.

The blood begins to pool in the thin cracks between the tiles.

“I know.”

 


End file.
